When You Take Someone’s Help, Keep Them Informed

In a recent post, I discussed a simple idea about how to ask for help from others – Be specific about the type of help you want.

I want to share another important tip when it comes to taking help or asking for favors.

When someone in your network does you a favor, especially for no other reason than to help you, go back to that person after the task is completed. Let the person know what happened.

“Hey, I met with Jeffrey. Thanks for setting that up. I am not sure what’s going to come of it, but I really appreciate that you went out of your way to help me.”

You owe it to the person who helped you to keep him or her informed about what is happening. Doing this is basic courtesy. I have been able to build deep trusting relationships by simply following this rule every time I have sought help or assistance from anyone in my network.  

Even though this seems intuitively obvious, why am I talking about it specifically? 

Because I’ve seen so many people ask for help and then, after getting that support, they don’t keep the person apprised of what’s happened. 

When someone does something for you that they are not obliged to do, it shows that they care about you, and it is likely that they would be curious to learn whether their assistance was helpful to you. So when you go back and keep the person informed about what is happening, the person will feel good knowing that you value the assistance. But, more importantly, it also leaves the door open for you to return to that person again in the future for any other help because he now has a good feeling about you.

Your network is a valuable asset that you can tap to for help and assistance- only if you observe the courtesy to let those helping you know what has happened.